analyzes key aspects of the fiscal year 2012 budget proposal submitted by president obama and the house gop budget proposed by paul ryan. internet and data protection attorney talks about why cyber attacks are on the rise and what can be done to protect consumers. "washington journal" ♪ >> the budget battle -- host: the budget battle continues here in washington. we are breeding of new spending cuts, changes in entitlements, and tax increases on the table. we want to give your reaction to that of news this morning and get your sense of what the

president should say. here are the numbers to call. for republicans, 202-737-0001. for democrats, 202-737-0002. for independents, 202-628-0205. here is the lead story in "the washington times" this morning.

host: that is the lead story from "the washington times." here is a bit from the white house adviser, david plus, from yesterday on the "fox sunday." >> we have a lot in health care. you have to look at medicare and medicaid to see the kinds of savings you can get. secondly, social security, that is not a driver of significant cost right now. in the process of sitting down and talking about our spending and programs, it would be good to have that discussion. host: that was "meet the press," actually.

the plan to reduce debt has been called a challenge to the gop, including tax increases and military cuts. a new speech will be delivered here in washington on wednesday where mr. obama will come off the sidelines. host: here is eric cantor, from

the house republican side, yesterday on the sunday shows. >> i sit here and i listen to david talking about cutting spending and i know that for the last two months we have had to pull this president kicking and screaming to the table to cut spending. by the way, they are insisting that we have to go about look at brigid looking at raising taxes again. on the one hand we will have to defend the tax agreement and then go ahead and violate it. as you correctly pointed out, the president himself said he would not raise the debt limit, and now they are flipping on that. it is hard it will leave. host: on the tax part of this story, "the washington journal"

put it this way. host: here is another line from david plus, the white house adviser. host: first call this morning, apple valley, california. good morning. caller: you know, these republicans, they have been saying things like -- if you

give me tax breaks for the rich, we will make jobs, do this, do that. they keep on talking about how barack is destroying monday, but how much money did bush leave that barack is trying to pay for now? everything that the democrats to save the country, these republicans, these rich guys, they are multi millionaires. they do not want to get rid of their money. they are trying to makeup poor pay for the rich. it is ridiculous how these guys up there are just playing games. anyways, that is all i have to say. host: all right, let's move on to john in lancaster, pennsylvania. host -- caller: the republicans

are moving in some alternate universe. budget is smoke and mirrors. rachel maddow did a great piece on that the other day. they are going to increase the deficit by 2020. my suggestion would be to cut $100 billion from defense off the top, get rid of the oil subsidy and the farm subsidy. raise the taxes on people that make over 500,000 per year. the last time taxes were this low was right before the great depression. 1932, 1933 until even reagan, the highest level was 70% in even 90% 25% is a joke.

the republicans are a joke. host: let's hear from the republican line, new jersey. frank, what do you think of this republican criticism? caller: it is pretty ludicrous when you think that the democrats had the white house, congress, and the senate. we are jezebel getting back to the $37 billion tax cut? it is not enough. the tax cut should have been $500 billion. to say that the republicans do not want to do anything -- what did the democrats do with that? what do you think they are going to do when it comes time to cut half of a trillion dollars off of the budget. host: we will get some other callers in here. here is "the richmond times dispatch" this week. "obama to look for debt cuts in

all places of government." looking at "the orange county register," california -- host: the same thing in zack goldfarb's article --

host: not exactly sure where that speech will be, but it will be wednesday somewhere in town. democratic line, linda. caller: it seems to me that the republican voter is stuck on stupid. people that run for office in the republican party, the wealthy, they know of their stupidity. the same thing as happened in states. they are taking away medicaid to give tax cuts to rich corporations. republicans are in the senate want to do the same thing. take away vouchers for medicare, you will have no insurance. if you are 55 right now, kiss your insurance goodbye. you are a dead person. you wanna talk about death panels? republicans plan to kill us. all of the help we have given

big business, they have not come out of the slump over the last 10 years? get rid of republicans. read something. do not watch fox anymore. you, c-span, should be investigating. like the other man said, we will never get to 2% unemployment. the paul ryan plan to increase the deficit by $8 trillion before it drops. you have to have revenue. do not cut out the pore person. you are putting the poor against the rich, public against private. let's get real. republicans are planning to make this corporate run fascism. host: that was linda. now, mark, independent color, tenn.. what would you like to hear the president say this week? caller: i would like to see the

president telling it like it is. get real. tell the republicans that they are delusional if they believe that republican -- that the republican budget plan is sound. at the same time, he needs to have a budget plan that he can lay out that will show all of the americans did it is all of our responsibility on this budget thing. and on the spending. we have all got a stake in it. host: more from "the washington post" version of this story.

host: here is more from eric cantor yesterday on the debt ceiling. >> unless we act and unless we act deliberately, our kids will not have " we have. it is as plain and simple as that. this spending deal this week is only the beginning. this is the first bite at the apple. this is about making the right decisions now. we have the right and budget up this week, laying out the plan for how we will deal with the challenges in this country. we have the debt vote coming in several weeks as well. that is about dealing with the fiscal mismanagement of the past. there is no way that the republicans are going to support increasing the debt limit without guaranteed stepped in place to make sure that

spending does not get out of control again. host: back to your calls. brent, republican, thank you for waiting. caller: i am tired of this class warfare mentality. to many americans have bought into this. it belongs back in the 19th and 20th centuries under marxist philosophy. we are all americans. if you punish the people that create the jobs, guess what? you are not going to have jobs created. it is a simple, common sense law of economics. i hear these democrats scream and cry, throwing fits about tiny budget cuts compared to the overall deficit. ladies and gentlemen, this is nothing. this is absolutely nothing

compared to a $14 trillion debt. we have got to end the sense of entitlement in this country and stop the democrats from playing the same political game they played for decades, and hanson political power by making more americans dependent upon federal government. that is not the way this country is supposed to be ran. that is not the vision of our founding fathers. host: twitter.com/c-spanwj is our twitter address, we are taking twitter messages as well. here is one message from twitter this morning. host: back to eric cantor, "wall street journal" here.

host: from the democratic side, senator dick durbin yesterday talked about the debt limit. here's a look. >> instead of risking government shut down, we are risking a second recession. i hope that the speaker understands clearly that if we default on america's debt, it

will have a dramatic impact on america's economy, spending us into a second recession. we do not need that. we have worked together on a bipartisan basis to avoid that. host: lots to talk about this morning. dan, florida. caller: in the worlds of michael more, we do not have a budget deficit, there is plenty of money in this country. americans, do not be fooled. any savings that the republicans say might come from slashing all of these social programs, they are going to turn around and not apply that money to pay not the deficit. they will take that money and put it in more tax cuts to the rich. the guy talks about class warfare?

that guy is in the same class that i am in. in the words of warning -- words of warren buffett, our class is a loser. the people that go to work for a living. these republicans need to get a clue. we are all in the same boat. they are pitting the working man against the working man. union workers against nonunion workers. fat cats sit back and left. -- laugh. taking whenever money the deficit cut, it will be given back in tax cuts to the rich. host: paul ryan's budget gets voted on in the house this week. we also get a vote on a longer-

term 2011 spending plan from last night. a lot of detail coming up on exactly what was negotiated here is another twitter message. host: if you want to read more about taxes, "the christian science monitor" has this piece today about why they will not raise taxes, calling it the real third rail politics.

host: so, we are expecting the president to talk about tax increases on higher income folks later this week. asheboro, va., good morning. how're you? caller: good. the reason i am calling, there will have to be sacrificed by everybody there simply is no fiscal way of solving that problem without some level of tax increase. ibm one of the people fortunate enough to be well and not -- over the level they are talking about. i am more than happy to pay more taxes if it means that we would resolve the problems in this country. if people would start solving on -- focusing on the solutions instead of the blame. i do not believe with everything --

host: what you think about the claim that this was settled by the midterm elections melancholic " it is not a good solution. i have run companies, i have starred in sold companies. never in 40 years have i ever made a decision based on my income capacity. i hired because i can sell more. we do not hire and fire based on tax brackets. we hire and fire based on whether we can sell profits -- whether we can sell things profitably. host: jim, good morning. caller: republicans are stuck on stupid, but the democrats the call in to not even know the difference between the national debt. that is all that we heard during the bush administration. out of control deficit spending.

obama tripled it. we do not hear anything about the out of control deficit spending of obama when it is three times as much. i would like to give some truth out about the writer on the budget for planned parenthood. the democrats have played a word game for decades where they follow the hyde amendment and do not fund abortion as long as they do not let the money go to provide the doctor's fee for the procedure, but they can buy everything in that abortion clinic other than the doctor's fee. the nurses, the electric bill, the equipment, everything in the room. as long as it does not pay the doctors $250 fee for the procedure, they say they are following the law. the need to cut out planned parenthood funding because it goes to fund abortions.

host: what exactly happened friday night with the budget deal that was reached? more details in the paper this morning. "usa today" -- host: that is from the

associated press, published in "usa today" this morning. caller: i would like to see the president point out a few things, our tax money is being used to pay the subsidies for big oil. i would like for him to point out the truth of how we only have government shut down when the republicans have some form of power but there guy is not in office. when bush was running up the deficit, they were saying that deficits did not matter and we did not hear a peep out of michelle bodman, john boehner. they only door around shutting down governments to make them fiscally sound when they have the opposite of their person in the white house.

yesterday i heard a british economist talking about how the economy is really on the upswing and he says that the paul ryan and policies are going to virtually return to the decade of the 1900's and what life was like than for big corporations. robert k. johnston, he has written several books and points out factually how the pore actually pay for the rich in terms of how government policies are written. i was so saddened to see what happened last friday night. it saddens me to say this but i had to, i felt like the republican party, the leaders of the republican party, not all of them, but the leaders, they became a party of ignominy.

i feel that it is too harsh to say as humans year, but we came close to using our troops that way, denying them pay on the battlefield while the members of congress continued to keep their pay. i think that if the president pointed out the factual things that i just mentioned, they would not need to be down with the wealthy. i am telling you, i am not wealthy, but i am disabled and other fixed-income. i told them that if you have to take part of my social security and it will help someone else, take part of it. host: picking up on the comment about defense spending, more about friday because the deal late friday night, nearly

midnight going into saturday, "the wall street journal" talks about what is known so far.

host: details on the current budget year plan that is likely to get a boat in the house this week, although they still have negotiations to do. we will tell you more about that in a second. elmira, ore., good morning. caller: good morning. i am 77 years old. i want congress to understand this, lots of americans -- i am 77 and have to live in the country because of costs for general living. i could cut much more than $50 per month. i would then be able to go to church. i have produced a television viewing to bully c-span. i worked at a food bank.

we are up to 30 boxes and 40 boxes per day, three days per week. if my medicare is cut anymore, i will be using the emergency room more than i am able to go to my doctor, which is further away. i do not nowhere to go from here. can someone in the note explain to me -- and do not talk about electricity -- my temperature in my home is at 66 degrees in the winter and i am under blankets. what am i supposed to do? that is all but i want for my government. host: eileen, elmira, oregon. one more message from twitter -- host: simpsonville, south carolina. jim, good morning. the president is set to make a

big budget speech. caller: i have a response for your last caller. the way to decrease energy costs is to stop democrats for refusing to find new energy. one of your callers said to tax the rich more. the only problem with that is that every time they increased taxes in any part of the population, the government wants to spend that money like a junkie looking for a fix. when dick cheney said that deficits did not matter, we were running a 3% deficit on the gdp. maybe that statement was made in the same context? and if you do not mind, the

people that keep saying that the rich do not pay their fair share, how can you even debate someone that makes that statement when the top 2% of wage earners pay 20% of the tax is going into our coffers. how can you make that statement on television and sound like a fair debater? where do they get away with saying that? taxing people more and figuring that out as a way to solve this, it will not solve anything. it will be done, it will not be taxed deficits. i think that we need to get back to a 5% tax cut across the board, every department. it will force the ability for people to make judgments about who is getting cut where. it will force the government in each individual department to

look for the excesses' in their spending. host: jim, thank you for calling. another twitter message this morning -- host: grace, democratic line, cleveland. caller: i would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone, regarding family planning, we still have a pandemic of hiv on this planet. family planning does 32% to 40%. h.i.v. screening and st the screening. we cannot afford to take this service from wealthy people -- take this service for needy people. millions will die.

federal funds are not used by family planning. please, everyone, remember that. so many young people are going to die if we allow the republicans to attack these clinics. the people do not have jobs, they do not have health insurance, they want to tax the one avenue that people have, clinics. please do not do it. we have to support programs that keep people alive. some people work for 25 years, 30 years. they lose their home, they lose their job. a few food stamps will sustain them for a few weeks. things that we demonize, we have to look at them differently now. republicans seem to be under some kind of subliminal programming. they are lying to us.

they are going to kill us. host: northern new jersey, marlene, independent caller. good morning. caller: i have been looking to c-span since it started. i am not that old, 67, but the government is lying to everyone. i do not care if they are republicans or democrats. the biggest lie is that george bush left without an overage. every year that bill clinton was in office, there was a deficit. there was a deficit of $200 billion per year. never once was there a budget balanced in my lifetime. now, on social security, people, that is after tax dollars. you have already paid income tax on that money. it is the only thing the working class has to depend on.

why with the rich people worry about the working class when they are only making more to protect themselves. you have generally electric in the white house with a democratic president. they got $3.2 billion of your money back. the people have to understand, we are, right now, building a $1 billion headquarters for nato in brussels. $1 trillion in afghanistan. people need to throw them all out. host: we will do this for about 10 more minutes. your calls on the president's budget proposals coming out this wednesday. john boehner writes in "usa today" this morning --

host: silver spring, md., robert, you are on the air. caller: i listen to your program every morning driving in to work. the problem according to your callers is dependency. the democrats want to but more and more people on the

dependency role. that is what we have such a large projected spending budget. i know it has not been passed, but that is the projection. we cannot go many more years like that when we have already got a $14 trillion debt. democrats, if you want your precious safety net to survive, you have got to stop enrolling people that do not need it, the middle class, and you have to let us cut where we need to cut. the federal government should not be funding planned parenthood. it is not about abortion, it is about what they are constitutionally authorized to do. this is what we have a federal debt of $14 trillion. my side has let your side for decades get away with saying that we would all be in trouble if we do that do these things.

host: here is the lead editorial from "the new york times" this morning.

host: beverly, a democratic one, north carolina. hello, beverly? beverly, are you there? caller: yes. host: go ahead. caller: it is so hard to hear the desperation in themselves, hearts of these people. if this country could give an $800 billion tax to the rich, then we are not poor. i hope that obama is strong and has a backbone, which he does not seem to have much lately. i hope that the sticks to the people that voted him in. i want to remind america that this kind of thing happens in europe. many years ago, where the peons were like the pork. you know what happened, do you not?

people are not going to take this forever. thank you. host: paul krugman writes this morning -- host: lincoln, neb., independent color. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call.

i have been listening to you all of the time. i have heard these congressmen calling in and they have not said what ought to be said, if u.s. me. have you ever heard of downsizing? that is exactly what is happening. we are in the middle of downsizing. how in the world did we get here? eight years ago we were flush with cash. i was listening to a radio program and there was a union person up there that said that $7 trillion have left our economy and gone to fund other countries' economies. we are downsizing these guys. they passed these trade deals and they did this mess on purpose. 140,000 businesses left the country? these billions of people lost their jobs? they have no way of making ends

meet? the money is done, the economy is shrinking, they sat there and watched this unfold and did absolutely nothing. i say that they are derelict in their duties. every one that allowed this to happen needs to go. for those businesses that threaten us with moving overseas, i say take your business away, we do not need you. we need to reestablish those businesses ourselves. host: tony, republican line. good morning. tony, florida? caller: hello? host: you are on the air. caller: good morning, how are you doing? host: doing fine, go ahead. caller: i keep hearing people

talk about giving money to the rich. children with the american spirit, the american idea, i do not want them to beg and wine like someone else to give me something. if i had four jobs, i would do. people coming into my talent -- into my house and taking my television, taking my stove, by and not rich, people. but why does the government not take something by force? why does that constitute a giveaway? if the president can explain that to me, i would support tax cuts for the wealthy. i saw that kind of talk destroy the country was born in. i would hate to see it happen here.

host: here is a twitter message about the tea party. host: "washington times" has this headline this morning.

host: the lead editorial in "the wall street journal" says -- host: one last call for this part of the program. boulder, colorado. thank you for waiting. caller: i would like to say that our country has always been a country that has knocked down the ridge.

also, eisenhower tax the rich, if everyone does not remember history, 32% for four years. schools and so much more. we started looking at what the democrats have looked up. running with this in this scandal, we are still vaguely scandalized. $1 trillion more deficit, that was until paulson had to escort $700 billion to get out of debt before the crash. obama inherited that. do not pick on obama, he had a freight train until he had to spend until he stopped.

the parties cannot take it anymore. the planet will be gone. it is horrendous. i think that he should use the patriot that dundee's republicans and declare them domestic terrorists. host: plenty of more time for your calls on budget matters. coming up in 45 minutes we bill talk to the president of the committee for a responsible federal budget, who wrote this piece in "the washington post" over the weekend. host: we will get a take on the president's new plan. first, after a short time out, reid wilson of the hot line will join us. he is the editor in chief. we will talk about policy. we will be right back.

♪ >> on april 12, 1861, confederate forces attacked fort sumter, igniting the civil war. this commemorates the 150th anniversary of the bombardment. next weekend, american history television brings you the sights and sounds with a special look at wartime life in the 1860's, as well as interviews with civil war scholars and reactors from the north and south. get the complete schedule apple c-span.org/history. you can have our schedule e-mail to you. what all of the events in the

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>> "washington journal" continues. host: our guest for the next 40 minutes or so, reid wilson, joining us from "the hot line." mr. wilson, what is your sense, so far, of the political fallout following friday night's deal? guest: the immediate fallout is that both sides won a little bit, both sides get to claim some victories. but not many people in 2012 will not remember this particular fight. we have next year's budget to deal with. the preliminary sense is that everyone dodged a bullet by avoiding the government shut down, but at the end of the day this freight train is getting closer.

the real fights are still to come. host: describe the oncoming freight train. this past week was fairly intense. how much more intense is it going to get? guest: significantly. in the last week we have seen people working through the night to prevent a shut downs over budget bills that will provide funding for the next six months or so. we have got to deal with the budget for the next year. president obama is going to start talking about entitlement and how to revamp the nation's entitlement programs. going farther, more immediately, you have a dat debate where republicans came to the 112th congress with a mandate to cut spending and government. now you are asking them to raise the deficit to allow government to spend more and go deeper in debt. essentially the last thing they want to do, but it is not an

option. they have to pass it through the house, it has to get passed through the senate, otherwise the fledgling economic recovery is going to evaporate. at the end of the day, you have got to get this through. meaning the republicans will need to make a deal. meaning more late night talks. they do not have much time. looks like the nation is going to hit the ceiling on may 16 and they only have until july before serious consequences come into play. host: our guest is the editor in chief of "hot line national journal." we will get to your calls for reid wilson in a moment. you wrote over the weekend that according to the freshmen, the steel from friday does not cut enough. host: there is a group of 87 freshman republicans in the house. they have a big problem here.

they are trying to prove but they are the most conservative possible members of congress. when they do this, the way the to prove you are the most conservative is by voting against your own leadership. just this weekend we saw dennis lot, a freshman from florida, saying he will vote against this bill because it does not cut enough. we have seen other conservatives say the same thing. john boehner is going to have a problem, republicans trying to out-conservative each other, a trend that is growing. you out-conservative each other by going against what the leadership wants. what the leadership wants is the deal that was struck with president obama. if republicans are able to hamstring democrats -- rather, hamstring john boehner against the deal he makes with the

democrats, it means you have to give away more to attract more democratic votes. john boehner, at the end of the day, faces a very precarious situation. an immovable force on the republican right. host: talk about the speech the president is more intimate on wednesday. here is the headline from the post. a new approach in reducing the deficit. tax cuts, back on the table as far as the president is concerned. tell us more. host: it looks like we have republicans over the weekend saying that tax cuts were not completely off the table. both sides are going to have to give up a bit and so far republicans have not given up much. the interesting thing is that the paul ryan budget proposal from last week really put republicans in the game in terms of entitlement reform.

now president obama is getting involved as well. after allowing the democratic national committee to go after paul ryan for assaulting the seniors. democrats are going to be getting into the fight as well, which may produce compromises in long run, but politically speaking it is not the best thing for democrats. they want an entitlement fight to portray republicans as callously attacking senior citizens. something that is not good for republicans, obviously. the fact that the president is joining this battle means they may not be able to do that. but in 2012 entitlements will be up for debate in the president's election, congressional elections. host: are they cutting back on the table the tax increases for those making more than one-

quarter of a million dollars per year? that is something i and most of the stories we are covering here. first call, boston, a democrat. caller: good morning. it has been years since i have been done here. my question, more like a comment, people call my president week. but what i think he is trying to do, he is giving the republicans the wrote to hang themselves. i know that all of those tax cuts that the republicans are putting out there, they are going to push this country into something forced from what it is now. i think the democrats are going to take over again after next year. the republicans have not created any jobs. they went after the president

with their power. instead of going after the jobs, to try to bring jobs back to this country, they want to go after the help -- health care. host: linked further to 2012 politics, as that caller suggests? guest: republicans have been trying to portray him as weak and ineffectual as part of a larger narrative. but obama has done the opposite. he has tried to portray himself as strong and involved. it is key that they got a budget deal done. so many deals got done on the president's turf. showing that he was involved when things could not go well. he would summon the speaker, the senate majority leader down to the white house, hashing out the issues. he and john boehner spoke several times on friday.

everything that we have seen indicated that the white house wanted to portray, whether or not they wanted to or not, in the end they played a big role in hashing out this field. the stories in "the washington post" this weekend, many of them talked about the moments that the president called for, saying that these were some of the most consequential figures in the u.s. government. a big deal. indicating that he was not on the sidelines. that he was involved in this fight. pushing back the narrative that republicans have been trying to spin. host: some of the stories suggest that the president went through. copies of these writers from late in the day. getting involved in the details. who, specifically, is around him?

guest: we have seen the three people that were doing the most negotiating. harry reid and his chief of staff, david grow, john boehner, and that the head of legislative affairs in the white house. if need be, obama, owner, and harry reid got in a room to hash out the rest of the issues. talking about policy writers, this is interesting. john boehner did not exactly did everything that he wanted. as a matter of fact, he got very few things that he wanted. two things that he got, prohibiting washington, d.c. from spending money on abortions and providing money for a scholarship program in washington, d.c. to give money to kids that want to go to charter schools. an issue that is near and dear

to john boehner's heart. a bit of a legislative win for him. host: tom, and calls reid wilson for the j a called reid wilson are for. go ahead. caller: in the 1940's, the bolivar tacked 40%. i cannot criticize anybody for that, but where are the american companies? this is what it comes down to. i work for multinational company. we are just an american company by name. there are no american companies anymore. i actually do not think they think about america. in chief -- every place spirit

is really annoying. we send our jobs overseas. it is just frustrating. host: reid wilson? guest: one of the things that will be interesting to watch is how they react to the budget deal, worker for the debt ceiling. on friday, and looked like the deal may not get done and there would be a government shutdown, we saw the value of the dollar fall a little bit. i think that will be fascinating to watch. keep an eye on how the dow jones says in the next couple of weeks, gas prices. while these budget fights will play a role in the 2012 elections, the biggest will be the economy. how voters feel, whether they are optimistic about the future. we have seen in the monthly jobs numbers, in the unemployment report, a serious swing towards a recovery.

but whether or not that is sustainable, given rising gas prices, unrest around the world, the u.s. economy, how it is being dealt with in washington, d.c. will play a critical role in president obama's re-election. host: reid wilson is our guest, taking phone calls. pam from west virginia. caller: mr. wilson, i often wonder why we cannot go to a flat tax. not a republican their tax, because it is not really a fair tax. the working man spending and hundred% of his income, the rich only 1%. no deductions, 10%. then the irs can go after the underground economy that pays nothing. i have worked for two major

corporations and they did not pay a dime in taxes. the other thing is, we should all bowed out every incumbent every election and find people to serve, like the founding fathers intended. it should not be a career. host: what about that idea of a flat tax? any legs? guest: republicans will talk about reforming the system, but in large part, that means reducing rates. the tax system you are referring to would eliminate the income tax and institute a sales tax, which some people have talked about as a proposal. mike huckabee was a big fan of that in 2008. one thing that is interesting in this whole debate, that taxed discussion is something

republicans are going to have to deal with at some point. it is not likely they will get away with the debt ceiling increase, with the fiscal year 2012 budget without closing loopholes or raising spending. and given the fact that everyone is trying to out-conservative each other, who will be the first to criticize republican leadership for whatever budget negotiations -- concessions they end of giving in order to get the larger ones in terms of spending cuts? host: that is interesting. in "the christian science monitor" they say that for the gop, for office holders, they will not touch this subject. they are referring to it as the third rail, as with social security. guest: here we go with kicking

off a 2012 presidential competition, an appealing to the most popular basis. not that anybody likes taxes, but three states that have a long history of voting against increases of any kind whatsoever. if everyone is tried to be the most conservative, there will not be much appetite in the republican party for making compromises, especially on anything that raises government revenues. host: phone call from shelby. caller: first of all, thank you for c-span. you guys are the most objective. i have a comment about representative brian. he wants to overhaul medicare and medicaid, i agree. i know it will never work. i think people would listen to him more if he included his own

health care plan. everybody in the senate, if they say, we are going to do this, everybody is going to pay the price. any comment on that? guest: let's talk about paul ryan's budget for a minute. the fact that he has gotten people into the debate, in terms of entitlement. a lot of people say they are willing to talk about cutting entitlements. we often do not see a lot of proposals that indicate they will. even with ryan's budget, he is the chair of the committee. we have not seen an endorsement from speaker baker, eric cantor, or kevin mccarthy, any of the republican bigwigs. no one has said, i favor this proposal. they have praised him for bold steps, for good, strong leadership, but they do not say

they will vote in favor of the bill. even the freshmen republicans, the ones that want to cut the most, will say they are in favor of a bill that cuts $4 trillion of out of the budget in the next decade. the conversation is easy to start, hard to finish. we will see congressman ryan does, especially with president obama coming out this week talking about entitlement reform. host: they are supposed to vote on this this week, right? guest: there will be voting on the resolution to fund the government through september. that was the agreement reached between john boehner, obama, and harry reid. they have plenty of time to debate that. washington, d.c. gets pretty hot in the summer, and it just got hotter because of this debate.

host: next phone call. judith is a democrat. caller: good morning. i have some thoughts about this excellent debate. i know that president obama would to the right thing. he said once, make him do it. we have to show him our needs. what we do not need as a country is the funding of research, development, employment of our resources for wars. this has been an absolutely missing item in the budget talks. i am still waiting to hear where our resources are going. this is a great country. whatever problems the world has,

we have the expertise to solve them. i want to hear, especially from c-span, who has such a good name for disclosure. so if half of the resources and money of this country are going to wars, we are going to be in more trouble. guest: one of the things i have been fascinated by in the last couple of weeks is how little people are willing to cut the budget. everyone wants to cut spending, but if you name a specific program, they are almost entirely event coming that specific thing. whether it is medicare, medicaid, defense spending -- unless it is federally earmarks or foreign aid -- which make up

1% of the budget, nobody wants to cut anything. americans were asked, what percentage of the federal budget do you think goes to public broadcasting? the average response was 5% of the federal budget. those two entities get a couple hundred million dollars, which is a fraction of a sliver of the federal budget. there are missing priorities here. we all want to cut something, but we do not want to cut that, what ever you just said. whether it is npr, planned parenthood, which survived this last budget cut, or whether it is social security, medicare, defense spending, which make up 80% of the budget. host: in "usa today" --

then move on to talk about the presidential race, on the gop side. guest: at the end of the day, the tea party movement played a clear role in this. they were against the short-term rather caller: continuing -- continuing resolution 24 individuals were already against it. we had mike pence, another freshman, and i were the are far

out on the tea party side. they want to be ahead of this. they want to be the darlings of the tea party movement. take a look at who is capturing the attention of the presidential field. michelle bachman, the congressman from minnesota. she is hugely popular. and she is raising the money to prove that she is popular beyond just showing up on glenn beck's show. in the last quarter, she raised more money than mitt romney reyes, which is -- raised, which is an interesting way to gauge her strength. she is a big deal, in terms of her support with the tea party crowd, and that has made her a big deal with the republican field at large. that tells you a little bit of how influential the tea party is.

all of the contenders will try to kowtow to the tea party base to convince them they are the best possible candidate, the most conservative, the most able to reflect those values. we have seen less of an argument of about who is the more electable candidate, more about who is most conservative, most in line with the tea party movement. i think that is a telling state of the republican party right now. host: dixon from north carolina. caller: i am a proud pro-life republican baby boomer. i hope nobody wants to call in and say that i am a killer, wants to kill women, anything like that. i think that the flat tax would really save this country.

i am 61, soon to be 62. when i started work a long time ago, i was a door-to-door salesman. i think gas was $0.50 a gallon. i was waiting about thinking -- thinking about waiting until i was 66 until retiring. i have decided to retire now because of the price of gas. i am being taxed to death. i would be better off drawn from my social security and staying home. if we could have a flat tax, a certain amount, i would be

better off working. look at how much money the government is working by retiring at 65. on to norman in san francisco. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have two questions. i would like to know, first of all, i am sure you gentlemen carry a lot of weight. i am a minister of the lord jesus christ. i have a lot of knowledge into deeper things, but i will not get to that right now. i'm will get to the basic facts of the issues. first of all, we have too many chiefs and not enough indians. first of all, why are we so ignorant to allow both

congress's, and whomever president, to not really understand the needs of the military -- i do not want to be etic, but there could be another shutdown. this is just a band-aid on a cut of the united states that is still going to bleed. my own brother crutch which it west point, third in his class -- graduated west point, third in his class, in economics, smart as the teacher teaching him. living in scottsdale, i have met

some of the most prominent mines over the years from major corporations. host: reid wilson, any insight you want to add their? guest: yes, he was talking about understanding with the military is going through right now. what we saw over the last week is both parties retreating to their old corners, in order to make the same arguments we have heard again and again. democrats tried to make this fight about the abortion riders. we heard from the previous caller about republicans wanting to hurt women, going back to that argument that has been used. republicans, on the other hand, tried to pass a continuing resolution that would fund the

military through the end of the year to the tune of $514 billion. that is sort of turning the debate into a troop funding bill. we had members from both sides talking about how important it was to make sure that the troops that their paychecks come at tetra -- pay checks, etc. both president obama and john boehner won it to focus on -- wanted to focus on expenditures, spending. both sides, both congressional bases, retreated to the school nurse and made those allied demands. i think that shows that those people who are paying attention are the republican and democratic bases, run and the independents. host: we heard arguments about

defense, we heard arguments late into the night. how challenging is it to cover all of this? all of this behind-the-scenes negotiations? you are hearing and seeing the up front language in the briefings. guest: i heard about one reporter who was lamenting the fact that by the time he walks from his office to his car, the white house had issued a veto threat, eric cantor had responded, and the white house had responded to him responding. it had gotten pretty fast paced. the folks at nationaljournal.com or hear pretty late that night. everyone sort of bonds over the sorts of things. host: what is the assessment of

speaker john boehner over all this? multiple trips to the white house, multiple phone calls? how is he being viewed? guest: everyone recognizes because of this large class of two-party -- tea party for prison beds, everyone understands he has a tough task. but he passed the test and was able to guide republicans who wanted huge cuts to a compromise. compromise is not something that a lot of republican primary voters want. there will always be t party groups and people who do not want john boehner to make a compromise with democrats, but the fact is, the democrats control the white house, and this is something that they have

to do. whether they vote with him, for the steel, en mass, remains to be seen. he was clearly worried about this. he was worried about having to sell this to his base. he was treated to a standing ovation in a conference meeting, which moved him deeply. over the last week, that is a momentary indication of how worried he was about the prospects of having to bring a deal, cut with democrats, to his own conference. the fact that he was able to get it passed speaks to his leadership ability, the fact that he has some semblance of control. host: mathieu from los angeles. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am an american. i was raised -- clean up your

own backyard before you start helping your neighbor. our backyard is a mess. we are helping our neighbors and to order our best for them. i do not want to sound racial or anything, but we have between 15 million and 30 million people in this country from south africa, europe, everywhere. maybe it is time to close the gates and maybe we can emphasize getting rid of those people that should not be here until we can afford it. we have to clean up our own backyard. i go to the grocery store every friday. i was in the store and barely anyone spoke english, including employees. everyone in california has this ebt card.

basically, food stamps. at the same time, i see that these are working people, they have this card, and since they are working illegally, they do not have to pay taxes. so they have this card, they collect under the table money, and that is a lot of jobs. we do not have to cut anything. we just need to get rid of the waste, get rid of the excess people, until america is strong enough again. it is wonderful, but when to cut back on that. i know it is a big issue. i love everybody. but we need to be cleaning up our own backyard. we should not be taking away from our senior citizens. host: reid wilson? guest: very interesting that we

are already starting to see the immigration subject come up. congressman jeff flake is the representative running at the moment in arizona. we are hearing about some republicans starting to run. jeff like backed comprehensive immigration reform in the past. now he says he is for an enforcement-only approach. those who support that do not necessarily trust him. i think immigration will be playing a big role in those primaries and in the presidential primary, too. one way to demonstrate how different are from the field is to come out with a real plan to change the situation at the u.s.-mexican border. that will be a fastening the -- fascinating debate to watch.

but there is definitely in danger of republicans have the to do that. hispanics are growing at the fastest rate of any minority in the country, now about one in every six american is of hispanic descent. they provide a significant base for the democratic party. president obama's reelection campaign will base itself so heavily on hispanics and african-americans, they are considering investing in states that john mccain won, including arizona, but also in other states that we think of as deep red territory, states like georgia and texas. those states are changing so rapidly, demographics are shifting so rapidly, they are now on the table. they have the potential to be swing states. if not in 2012, then by 2016,

2020, they could be on the table. host: tom is from pittsburgh. welcome. caller: i need some clarification in reference to what our fine congress and president has done in the past five weeks. we had a continuing resolution that came out and it's both and they cut $10 billion. the second resolution to both of the cupp $14 billion. in this budget they we're finalize this week, $30 billion. that is a total of $262 billion cut, or did they simply add them up and come up with $30 billion? guest: as i understand it, the $30.5 billion in cuts are new. sometimes you will hear the number of 78.5, somewhere around $70 billion in cuts. that is because those additional

moneys are from accounts that the president wanted to grow department. that would not agree to, so some people are counting that as a cut. those are new cut through the end of this fiscal year, ending in september. when that comes up, we will be talking about a new series of cuts. host: one of your from twitter -- what you think, reid wilson? guest: there are a lot of people in washington that do not want to raise the debt ceiling. the tea party freshman, for lack of a better term, say they do not want to raise the debt ceiling. they came to washington specifically to cut spending. now they are being asked to raise that spending. it is not that one party wants

to raise it, one party does not, or that they both want to. whatever john boehner what, he has to bring along a lot of his own freshman republicans. he cannot do this deal just with democratic votes. he certainly does not want to do it with just republican centrist and moderate votes. that will lead quickly to a challenge to his authority. this is a fine balancing act that john boehner has to do. the debt ceiling will really test his relationship with conservatives in his own conference. host: one more minute with our guest, reid wilson. in the immediate near-term, what will the next few weeks look like in the budget battle? guest: we will start actually

passing a compromise that was cut between baker and harry reid, president obama, through the house early this week. that will go through the senate. they will pass that as well. the president will sign it, and i would not be surprised if john boehner was at the white house for that signing. then the debate goes over to the debt ceiling. this is round one of a three- round fight. round two will be tough. president obama and harry reid it to go back to been negotiating table to talk about how they can get this debt ceiling raise done. a lot of people will be mad at john boehner because whatever compromise he makes will not be good enough for everybody. you cannot please all the members of the house or senate on anything. we are going to be dominated by talk of spending, the economy, over the next few months, and

even into 2012, as the economy recovers, that will be the dominant issue. i think you will see a lot of discussion in the republican field of their various economic plans, cutting taxes, about cutting spending, because of that, and it will dominate the general elections as well. whether the economic trend lines are good enough to get president obama reelected, we will have to see, but signs are very good for the white house. host: reid wilson has been our guest. thank you for your insight into politics. more about the budget from maya macguineas, president for the committee for a responsible federal budget. >> let us meet one of our top winners from this year's studentcam competition. this year's been asked students to produce a video about a

topic at hand them better artist and the roles of government. today, we go to bloomington, indiana. why did you create a documentary about the funding of it in the and the's education system? >> i made this film because over the past year, the art school had been getting cut. they took out several glasses, including foreign languages. one could consider those as pretty important. >> what did you learn about the financial state of the indian education system? >> there is not enough funding. we are in a crisis. >> do you think the state of the education system is affecting your education? >> it could be.

if we are going to cut, -- okay, without public tv, i would not have been able to win this contest. >> what role do you think the government should play in improving indian education opportunities? >> to provide more money so that we can keep some important classes like foreign language, business tack. >> what did you learn from the superintendent of education dr. tony bennett? >> he plays a key role in the education crisis. he is the man that everyone goes to. >> in your interview, he says high expectations can outweigh a limited state budget when it

comes to student achievement. what did he mean by that statement? >> as long as we can hold high expectations, we can overcome any crisis. >> what is the message he would like to share with people through your documentary? >> basically, and there are many things that need to happen to solve this education crisis. not just in indiana, but everywhere else in the u.s., there are lots of things that need to happen. >> thank you for joining us today. here is a brief portion from his documentary, "improving educational opportunities in a time of crisis." >> some activities may be more, others may be less. i think we have to have those

types of discussions, so that we can him me -- identify how important are the arts, foreign languages, where are they in terms of our core mission? >> stand by. we are going live in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. >> i am sorry, kids. this program is being cut due to budget cuts. we are eliminating all clauses that do not have a direct impact on test scores. >> you can see this entire video and all the winning documentary's at studentcam.org.

host: plenty of more but the discussion now. maya macguineas is our guest. thank you for being with us this morning. you wrote an "the washington post" this weekend -- you are in search of the goldilocks budget. guest: we are starting to see more plans of what is out there. years ago, those of us who were worried about this, were starving for people to get specific. the budget that came out was much too weak in that it does not address the fiscal problems that we face. the good news is, we are going to hear from the president this week, something that is more forceful. we just had the house budget committee chairman, paul ryan,

which a lot of people have called his budget bold and courageous. it talks of the changes to the budget. there are a lot of good ideas in there. i think a lot of those ideas are also probably too old for the task at hand, which is getting something in place this year. the deficit situation we face is troubling enough. we have to pass something this year that will address it over the coming years, multi-year budget that will reassure credit markets and let people know what is expected. and then continue to have conversations about health care reform and other things. congress and ryan's puts out big ideas about that, but they are not the type of thing that we can put into law. it is almost too big and it is also lopsided. it focuses on some parts of the budget very aggressively. it does not do much in defense, other than what is already

planned. and importantly from a policy and political perspective, it does not cut taxes. although we'd love tax cuts, we have to put everything on the table. also because the problem is so large, we need to look of all parts of the budget. the fiscal commission, last december, put out a bold plan that touches all parts of the budget. it really looks at everything, from the fence, to help care, to how to strengthen such as a charity, reforming the tax code, and they end up saving $4 trillion over the next decade. and it doesn't in a way that i think both sides believe are balanced. -- does it in a way that i think both sides believe are balanced.

a lot of people agree this is the right starting point. i also talked about how the white house is talking about a narrative. let's protect public investments while we do this. let's make sure not to go so fast that we do not dismantle the economic recovery. those are all important point. congressman paul ryan said the money to look at more structural reforms to entitlement programs. in many ways, they are structured for the past and not the future. we need to rethink how we do things in health care, how social security is structured, to make sure there is space for all of the other things you want to do. so i talked about taking pages from that playbook, but taking what the white house commission put out there for a good starting point. hopefully, we can have a good discussion to bring forth all of these ideas. but we saw in this recent cr --

this political fighting -- i know it is reality, but we have to focus on bipartisan solutions, focusing on members of congress working together. that is why i am in atlanta today. senators chambliss and warner, who have been spearheading the effort, putting this into something that people can agree on, with members of the senate, including senators coburn, durban -- they are trying to change the debate by working together. i am down here because they will be speaking to a greabig group f people. that is a long answer, but it is important that we give it to a discussion about fixing the budget. it will take everyone on it. time is not really on our side. host: phone number are on the bottom of the screen for maya macguineas, a grant wood of

harvard, has also worked at the brookings institution. -- graduate of harvard, has also worked at the brookings institution. we are talking about the white house and gop's budget plans. we would get to your phone calls in a second. more about this so-called gang of six that you talk about. you say -- a little bit more on this effort from this group of senators, this gang of six. is it realistic to think that what they come up with can get widespread approval? guest: it is the best hope we have of getting something done that will fix the problem, that well make people feel like they have been treated fairly.

this will not be easy. we have delayed too long in fixing our fiscal problems. nobody should kid ourselves that we should just cut waste, fraud, and abuse, reduce international assistance. this is going to have to involve things that people in washington do not like talking about. it will have to have real spending cuts, real changes in revenues. the good news is, voters are willing to that, if they believe they are treated fairly, so they are not the only person that is part of the solution, and if they believe this will actually fix the problem. it is no fun to go through so much work and have to do hard things and not have fixed the problem. i think the gang of six is doing incredible work. they have been working tirelessly for a number of weeks

on putting this into a form that they can all agree on. but it goes beyond that. recently, senator bennett and johans brought together 64 senators saying that they would support this work, encouraging the president to get involved. one year ago, many of us were looking at the senate saying, how can we get anything done, they cannot agree on anything? well, we have seen exactly how you want to see the senate work. a number of senators came together and said we have a real problem that is threatening the nation's fiscal health and we need to find a solution that we can all agree on. not everyone will love it. i am sure they are pushing themselves to come up with something that they can all agree on. you have different political beliefs. senators durbin and kurt --

coburn to not often see eye to eye, but they believe that the debt poses huge challenges to our economic recovery and to the next generation. so that is the model of how you want things to work. low and behold, the senate has put forth the model of how things should work. it looks like a functioning body again. beyond the fact that they may come up with a proposal that we can work with this year, it has freed new life into the senate and so many other colleagues are supportive of what they are doing. there is no guarantee we are going to get this done, there are a lot of political land mines along the way, but those word about putting together a balanced package and addressing this, should be pleased about the after that the senators are putting into this. it is a step in the right direction. host: first phone call from herald. columbus, ohio. caller: i would like to make a

suggestion. my suggestion is we are to use to casting these arguments in terms of republicans, democrats, liberal, conservative. if either party had two-thirds of the house and the white house, they still would not do anything because there are so many vested interests in every program. for example, this $30 billion, i noticed it and not talk about where they are cutting. it is sort of an ephemeral figure of they are just talking about. i bet we will not see any specifics. host: have you seen any specifics yet, maya macguineas? guest: i have not. i think they are still being worked out. i am always disturbed at how we try to put these two buckets of democrat and republican out there. you cannot break of all the policy that way, and you cannot

move forward on fixing them if you set up two warring camps. the notion about democrats for his republicans is not very good for getting things done. these things are hard to do. of course, there is a constituency for everything. you can believe the people who will be affected by cuts are the ones you will hear from. and the rest of us, whether it is cuts in defense, agriculture, energy, health care, whatever program that would help to close the budget gap, we will not be crying as loudly, thank you for improving the budget, as the people directly affected. thereby, you have a lobbying industry, who is able to push back on the changes. what we will hear in the coming months is, i'll want to balance the budget, but do not touch this, did not raise this tax,

spending program. everything has to be on the table. certainly, there are parts of the budget that should be more protected than other parts. projected investments are important for our long-term growth. a lot of things that we call investments do not work. we have to be more rigorous in terms of what is working. i happen to think protecting the safety net, allowing those things to continue, it is important. i also think the game about how we reform the tax code is critically important. taxing more of things that we want, like income and savings, is not good for the economy if we do not tax things that we do not want, light pollution or consumption.

the best place to start there is the over $1 trillion that we have it in tax breaks. all of these credits, deductions, exemptions, exclusions, cause a loss of over $1 trillion a year. if he were to get rid of the bulk of those, you can bring rates down so aggressively and close the fiscal gap, that you have managed to improve the economy, make the tax code symbol for everybody, get rid of a lot of these distortions that tax breaks cause, and reduce the deficit. but as the caller points out, every person and industry that benefits from the tax breaks will say, we want to look at these, but leave mine alone. we have waited too long to fix the problem. it will now be a large solution that is necessary and everyone will have to be in it together.

but i think there is something good about that. once you realize the task at hand involves all parts of the budget, it does not have to pit people against each other, as much as other budget deals in the past half. this is about voters caring about the well-being of the country. closing the deficit and debt is not just a mathematical challenge. it is how you really strengthen the economy, we focus the budget on the right priorities, come back on the principle that something is worth paying for, get back to a healthy budget. the economy will prosper. that will be the right thing to do for court workers, future workers, and it is really in the best interest of the country to come together on this. hopefully, that is the mentality that pushes us forward. host: meant the end, texas. donald, you are on the republican line. caller: everyone keeps saying

social security and medicare is in trouble, how to fix it. in 1937, when social security was founded, the law stated that the money would stay in the trust fund and would not be transferred into the general fund to be spent for another purpose. for the last 30 years, secretary of treasury in congress have spent the money to the tune of about $30 trillion. in 2009, on c-span, i watched former secretary of the treasury paulson talk about how he had put 1.3 trillion dollars into the general fund. all of you experts -- nobody discusses this. it is as if this did not happen. host: any current thoughts of

how social security plays into this? guest: it is our largest government program. right now, it is on an unsustainable path. best thing we can do for this program is make sure that we put it back, so that it is sustainable. but will require some changes. we talk about this a lot. there have been a number of proposals out there to fix social security, and most of them look at the same basic ideas. we are living longer than when social security started. while the retirement age have gone up gradually, need to think about ways for people to work longer, especially in jobs where they're able to. for many of us, you will be able to work longer. that is an important part of the solution. fewer and fewer people are working to support more and more people who are in retirement and living longer.

we need to find a way to have people age as productive flee as possible. stay in the work force part- time, the more flexible about this. another thing we need to think about is where we are " too slow the benefits. benefits and social security cola nasser -- much faster than inflation. there are a group in the top and middle that want to slow that inflation, while making sure that, one, nobody that is retired is currently affected. second, people who depend on the program, hopefully, in fact, have their benefits increase, because they are not really generous. and a third possibility is thinking about how to get more revenues into a program. the taxable maximum is capped. you could increase how much goes into the program. we know how to fix social

security. in fact, it is a lot easier than health care. that is the biggest challenge facing the budget. and we do not know how to slow the growth facing the budget in terms of health care. however, with social security, emotions run high. i hear a lot of scare tactics trying to influence seniors. i do not know anything about drastically changing benefits for seniors, current retirees. in fact, they tend to grandfather people for a long time. if we started making changes a decade ago, we would have pared people more for making the changes. also, more people know that social character is a good program, and want to make sure that it is there for younger workers, people who will need those retirement benefits later. in order to do that, we have to make changes now. the government trust funds, which has saved some of the

money for social security, was used for other government spending. that money is government treasury. it is owed to the trust funds. it will be paid back to the trust fund, but has a profound effect on the rest of the budget. host: let me go ahead and get some other phone calls. portland, oregon. denise. what is on your mind? caller: i am on social security disability. i have been for about five years. i live on less than $1,000 a month. i would be more than willing to give up some of that to support future generations, get your social security's -- get their social security. i would like to know how that relates to wealthy people's tax cuts. people making over $200,000 a

year -- i am not sure where the tax break is right now. host: hold that thought and we would get back to our guest, jim from michigan. caller: hello. i will but somebody to answer, a question on paul ryan's budget. the democrats must of by eliminating single payer. the government gets the worst of it, that is why it is so expensive, because of seniors. you get this voucher. what insurance company is going to want to insure a 70-year-old with cancer. -- with cancer? host: take that voucher idea, which has been out there, as

part of the medicare plan. workable, in your view? guest: is, in my view. i wanted to both questions. -- it is, in my view. when it comes to health care, we do not have all the answers in terms of how to control cost. one thing we have to think about is how to put a budget on health care. health-care spending by the federal government is basically open ended for medicare, medicaid, veterans', tax breaks for health care -- all of these things are not in the budget. most of the programs, the largest share, or on automatic pilot. it just keeps growing automatically. that is probably not the best way to do cost control. there is growing support, which i agree with, to find a way to have a health care budget, which was then put the pressure on how to control costs. one option is the premium

support option, with paul ryan has. this brings the dollars back to the individual in a way that they are not now. they direct the insurance where they would be spending it on the insurance, and it puts more skin in the game. it makes it more price sensitive. a bigger issue is how much support for those premiums would grow. they grows budget, very slowly, which is why he is able to generate such tremendous savings in the out years. but the cost would go up slowly for the premiums for the idea. my personal preference is to look at that as a structural change, but also think about how you allow vouchers to grow more quickly. we want to bring down their growth, but we also have to recognize, part of the reason that costs are growing is

because new technology brings along things that people want is the cream and support model, which is good. there is the public option model, which fell off the table, but people should bring it back. there are hybrids, working with a traditional medicare proposal, which is something that people have brought up, which is useful. we have to think about structural forms and we have to realize, none of it will be easy. with health care, we keep on coming up with new thing that we all want. we have to realize that that mean that we will have to pay more. the first caller, i thought it was great. she said she was willing to be part of the solution. that is a powerful thing that policymakers need to understand. the voters are tremendously generous on helping about this. i was in the airport last week and somebody came up to me and said -- they were on social

security -- they said they would give up half of the benefits if they knew that it would strengthen the program for their kids and grandkids. that is something that you do not hear often enough. people are willing to do a lot. host: before we get back to call tweet --a our guest is maya macguineas. we have a phone call from olney, maryland. chuck. caller: i have a couple of questions. if we had invested all the money the people contributed to the social security fund and invested the money -- it is supposed to be a trust fund. therefore, if we invested that money and we had an average return of 4% for the last 50 years, we would not be having

the discussions. there would be so much money in the trust fund to fund everyone for the next 100 years. i do not understand why they keep a laumann the deferment to borrow this money and use it to fund everything they are funding and we get no results. host: sharon is on the line from oregon. democrat's line. caller: i just wanted to say, my husband and i retired in 1999. when we quit working, we were under the assumption that our 401k, money in the stock market was going to tie us over until we reached 62, which was when we could collect social security. at this point, we have nothing left. you have to commit to the five-

year thing, where you have to stay on, just getting a certain amount of money every month. my point is, social security was not set out to be a welfare program for people. everybody paid into it, the rich and the score, and it was an insurance policy. now, i hate when i hear that nobody is going to get hurt. guest: there is a lot in there, and it is a a good reminder that social security is one of the harder issues to get into, because people have a very different senses of what the program is meant to be. here is my belief -- it involves a lot of different approaches to social security is important because it is a base amount that will help people have guaranteed

savings of some level, and those things can only be guaranteed as long as the program is funded. we don't have a revenue stream to cover. we shouldn't be making promises without a plan for how they add up. social security should not be anybody's isolde timing, because you also need to have personal savings, -- social security should not be anybody's soule retirement, because you also need to a personal savings. the program was an intergenerational program. we started paying benefits out right away. the money isn't safe for me, it goes directly to my father, and when i retire, my kids' tax dollars go to my benefits. for quite some time, we get additional funds that we saved in the trust fund and they were

invested in u.s. treasuries, and that money was spent to finance other parts of the government. that is one of the complicating factors now, that we have to pay the trust funds that we owe money to and the budget is in such poor shape to do so. it was never a defined contribution program where you saved the amount and will be there upon your own retirement. there are other components of the budget that do that and i am open to having savings as part of the social security system. i think that makes an awful lot of sense and. the bottom line is we need to be saving more for retirement. we are not saving enough. that is part of what we have just seen in the economic crisis recently. we need to find more ways to encourage savings, and that should probably be diversified said that we of the social security covering up part of it and we also have personal savings covering a part of that. there is a risk in social security that we have promised more than we can pay, and we need to fix that and make sure we have a system that is

structurally sound so that people now when they can expect. it is impossible to give 100% security, but we want to have a couple of different approaches to savings for retirement so that we are more secure. my personal belief about fixing social security is that the most important thing the people who depend on the program are protected. i do think, as somebody who has looked for all the different numbers and no one is going to take to fix the system, -- know what it is going to take to fix the system, is to ask people who can contribute more have a little bit less benefits to do so. they are willing to do that if they know that the program will be strengthened for their kids. and working in the longer for people who can -- it is key to stopping this program work and key to our economy is thriving in -- it is key to helping this ourram worke an key to

economy is thriving in the future. we need to make sure that the promises we have made are realistic and assure future generations that they can at the same security the generations in the past had. host: an e-mail on the taxes. "solution, if you hold american citizenship, you pay american taxes." texas, you are up now, independent line. liker: it looks everybody in the last two said what i was going to say, so we need to educate our politicians at every level. they have a spending like

drunken sailor thing going, and if they need to be reeducated. we may need to get them all out and get new people that may have some sense in their head. that is my comment. host: 90, republican call for -- maggie, republican call for maya macguineas. caller: common sense in this country is dead, and it has been approved this morning. i heard a lady call from oregon saying that she has been on social. for five years and she is willing to give back to help the system. everybody screams and cries about customer service representatives somewhere. people whohese call in from the telephone be a customer service representative back home? you can have jobs back here. i just don't understand it. host: "the wall street journal"

focuses on the president's speech on wednesday and says taxes on the table. in the paul ryan budget, are there any tax increases at all? guest: there are tax decreases overall. he cuts some of the tax base i was talking about before. all kinds of credits and deductions and exemptions and exclusions. he does a tax overhaul -- we have not seen the specifics of which ones -- to generate savings. overall, his budget is aggressive on tax cuts, not increases. host: what is your sense of the president's proposal that might come out, i tax rate of those -- higher tax rate on those making a quarter of a million or more. guest: my sense on taxes it's that we do not talk about it in a realistic way in this country. the event that there is no political interest from either

party to really -- given that there was no political interest from either party to restructure the biggest problems we have, taxes are going to have to go up. i don't know why we are not able to have more of a realistic discussion on this. nobody likes to pay taxes, but if you want to spend money on things, you have to be willing to pay for those. that is a simple principle of budgeting. there are a lot of "no new tax" pledges, and if somebody makes that pledge, they have to show how they would it ever bring the deficit down without raising taxes. there is also a pledge from the white house not to raise taxes on those making less than two water to thousand dollars a year could -- less than $250,000 a year. i think we are going to have to go farther than that, because we have growing health-care costs, an aging society, investments that we have not invested

sufficiently in the past years. at those can have a real effect on our long-term growth trajectory. we need to come first and foremost, restructure our spending and cut government spending. that is the biggest problem we face and with the bulk of the solution is going to be. but i would say, quite frankly, there is no way to do this without revenues. there is no way to do this without cutting into some of the programs that people are committed to preserving to get on top of the fiscal challenges we face. what is critically important is that we do this in a way that is smart for the economy. raising taxes does for the most part have bad effects on the economy. there are ways to reform the tax code that would be good for the economy and would raise revenues. that is the model we need to look at to promote growth. the starting point is that you brought in the tax base as much as possible, lower rates, and have revenues to close the

fiscal gap. other things that are not in the conversation as much as i would like to be is the carbon tax and gas tax. we need to get ahold of energy policy in this country and look at taxing things that are part of it would be a very important place to start. it really is driven by spending. if you look at where the growth of the problem is, revenues are going to be higher than they were in the past. i do not want to take the pressure off what we really need to do, to reform entitlements, but we have to be realistic and everything has to be part of the solution. host: jim, illinois, thank you for waiting. you are a democrat. caller: i was getting to the point where it is just ridiculous that they want to balance all the budget on the backs of people that cannot afford it. you have got corporate welfare

everywhere. they don't want to do anything about that. they give the farmers ago companies $400 billion -- pharmaceutical companies $400 billion right off the top. my prescription is made in ireland, and another one is made in italy. at they charged us five times more than what they can charge anywhere else, because washington lets them get by with it. it is ridiculous that they just keep piling on the people i can afford it least. of the gasoline prices going through the roof. it takes seven months of my income just to pay my medical insurance and my property tax and my federal income tax, which i pay more federal income tax than most millionaires. host: jack in minnesota now, independent caller for maya

macguineas. caller: our fiscal ship, as has been correctly pointed out, is sinking. it obviously has a leak. it would be proper to correctly diagnosed where the leak is coming from. at the leak is not coming, maya, from the mandatory budget or so- called entitlements. that has not contributed much, if anything, to the last 10 years of leaks, ok? take the social security off the table if you want to "help us." help us on your time at another time, ok? also, the medicare program is only 39% supported by the general funds. with the leak is, maya discretionary budget, and you know it. guest: well, that is not true,

that is just not the case. what we have been having in our budget for decades now is the programs that are mandatory, the ones on automatic pilot, have been squeezing out the discretionary side of the budget. if you look at these by charts by decade, you will see that domestic discretionary, total discretionary budget, used to be much larger than mandatory, and at that is switched. it has been an ongoing budget squeeze on the biggest programs in the mandatory part of the budget now that may be how people want it brought we may want to switch some of our priorities. but you cannot say it does not have an effect on our fiscal situation. more importantly, going forward, it is where the problem is coming from. again, i would say that just because the problem is growth of certain programs, we may want more of those programs going forward. but we need to be very

thoughtful about the more money be put into programs for seniors, for instance, the less we putting in for children, investing in children. is that the right to write off? it is my belief that the best thing you can do for the budget is to make an investment-focus budget rather than a consumption best focused budget. while we have had in this country is -- what we have had in this country is no for investment on borrowing. -- is an over-investment on borrowing. the ongoing squeeze is going to continue. i would say it is reversed -- domestic discretionary, where we just saw cuts, as had a lot more in terms of changes that other parts of the budget, and that is where we need to look next. host: pat, you get the last word as far as the colors go.

caller: i have been listening, and what i'm hearing from america that is a lot of mean- spiritedness. the republican party has wasted years being the party of no. that was their platform. "we are just going to say no to everything the obama with the democratic party tried to pass." well, i am telling them you cannot say no, you cannot shut down the government, because you work for me, you work for us, and show up and do your job. now you look like clowns because now boehner has control of the house and he wants everybody to be and i-- at his beck and call. host: maya macguineas, as you

take that last fall, moveless back to the thesis -- move us back to the thesis on the goldilocks budget. guest: i don't think there is mean-spiritedness overall and that the policymakers involved are as partisan as sometimes seems. they want to get problems resolved and have a tough environment in which to work. we need to give positive reinforcement to those willing to make tough courses and cooperate and solve these problems. the fiscal problems we face are real. if we do not make changes to our budget, which threaten our economy and the threat of having credit markets turned against the u.s. we cannot let that happen. the way forward is going to have to be to allow and encourage the parties to work together. it is too hard for either party to take this on on their own. there are no good guys or bad guys here, i really believe

that. we have to compromise, and ideally, what we would do is this year put in place in multi- year plans to get over the next decade would make sure our debt is on a stable unsustainable level. we look at all parts of the budget -- stable and sustainable level. we look at all parts of the budget. that is the best step to save our economy from what a debt and deficit crisis could otherwise due to us. we have to be willing to pull our sleeves and work together. i think that the work of the fiscal commission, a lot of members of congress will come forward and say this is the number one issue facing the country. i think the president coming out this weekend starting to talk about all with the important steps -- and talk about how he wants to proceed or all important steps. for the u.s. to stay strong, this is an important step to take. i think there is a good chance

we can move forward on this so i keep my fingers crossed. host: maya macguineas down in atlanta, president of the committee for a responsible federal budget, and keep your time. guest -- thank you for your tim. guest: thank you. host: we will talk about cyber security and what is being done about it. in the meantime, news from c- span radio. >> the data secretary general said that military action alone will not solve the crisis in libya, and that any cease-fire must be credible and verifiable. meanwhile, leaders from the african union are in libya trying to negotiate a cease-fire between muammar gaddafi and rebels trying to oust him. china is reacting to the united states human rights report that finds the country is limiting freedom of speech and internet access.

in a polished record, china is criticized in the west -- in a published report, china is criticized in the u.s. for criticizing wikileaks. retired supreme court justice as saturday o'connor continues to hear cases in courts while playing a role in public policy issues. she has campaigned against the election of state court judges and recently hosted a session of the supreme court with speakers opposed to alaskan copper and gold mine. an expert at the university of pittsburgh says that a former justice should consider not hearing cases if, in his words, "she wants to engage in political activity." those are the latest headlines from c-span radio. >> tonight on "the

communicators," fcc commissioner robert mcdowell. >> what are the specific harm to consumers? if there are times, conditions should be narrowly tailored to address those. the process should not be an excuse to implement rulemakings on issues that don't arise because of the merger. >> "the communicators," tonight on c-span2. >> the c-span networks -- we provide coverage of politics, public affairs, nonfiction books, american history. find our content any time through c-span video library. we take c-span on the road with our digital bus and local content of it up, freeing our resources to your community. washington your way -- the c- span networks. created by cable, provided as a

public service. "washington journal" continues. host: our topic now, cyber security at federal policy. at the table is randy sabett, an attorney here to talk about the trends in cyberattacks. what is allowable, vulnerability in this country? -- what is the level of all the ability in this country? guest: the level of vulnerability depends on what area you are talking about. there are i would consider a smash-and-grab attacks, where they are just trying to get credit card numbers and make use of them now because of the availability of credit card numbers, the value of those has gone down. and attack the people have g otten more aware of is it related to what we have seen it

the past few weeks, the advanced persistent threat, but it is becoming more known lately, and the notion there is that the attack is persistent. these people are very smart, they are inside your system for quite awhile, and it is not as several -- it is not necessarily like credit cards, but they are after personal information. host: what other types of the cyberattacks should we know about? step back for a second and explain what cyberattack is. guest: wow. host: we only have half an hour, 45 minutes. guest: a cyberattack is an unauthorized person enters into a network or has access to your data or other mechanism, or with the way that some of our laws are worded, it is when someone exceed authorized access. someone may have access to your system in unauthorized fashion,

but goes -- in an authorized fashion, but goes poking are round and get stated they are not supposed to get. when someone has access to your information they are not supposed to have access to. host: randy sabett -- part of his career was as a quid pro- engineer. educated at syracuse, where he has a law degree. he is here to talk about trends in cybersecurity. you mentioned credit cards and the advance persistent threat not go for the average person, for myself, the average person out there, what should they be concerned about? guest: the biggest thing folks should be worried about that is related to both of those are the types of attacks that are becoming more personal. in the past, you might get e- mail that might be from some strange e-mail address and and they oppose in at.

all of you -- and they have typos in it. all of the usual indications that it is not a valid e-mail. as the attacks are becoming more sophisticated, they are not watching blanket at tax anymore, where they are launching thousands. they may just launched 100 where they are targeting specific individual to get specific information, and then they further the attack. is not to get information and run off with it, it is to get access -- to part of a network or to other information they want to get at. they become more significant when you have breaches where the people who carry out the particular attack -- to interesting thing in that attack is that they did not get a hold of the information that is typically thought of when you

think of a cyberattack. all they got there was a name associated with an e-mail address. but with that they also know who had the e-mail address and the combination. you may get e-mail from your bank that says -- you are paul, and they go through and it looks very valid, because it has the combination, and they get you to do something that, again, furthers their attack of the system. host: may be a tough question to answer, but before we go to calls, we're to mainly the attacks come from? -- where do mainly the attacks come from? guest: i will answer that indirectly by saying that is one of the biggest problems. there is an issue known as attribution. one of the problems dealing with some of the more -- some of the cyberattacks that are not necessarily on the consumer side but the nation state types of attacks is trying to figure

out who it came from in the first place. attribution becomes a significant issue. a number of the attacks they have tried to track down originate, and they think, in western europe -- in eastern europe. some of the tax originate in the united states. but again, it is a difficult question. host: naomi, republican, good morning. caller: good morning. i am calling, really -- and players hear me out and please don't turn me off -- and please hear me out and please don't turn me off. i am a c-span junkie, and i listen to you all the time -- hello? host: we are listening. caller: i sit here every morning and i have my breakfast and coffee, and cybersecurity and federal policy, i will be listening to that. but when it comes down -- i am

talking to the host -- to the republican line, independent line, and democratic line, i am not asking and requesting, i am pleading a host and the fairness -- i actually count and tally how you all of your calling and answering, and answering the calls per got the democrats and independents are like a three- one with the republicans called. i want to know why is that, because i pay my bill for c- span. i want fairness. when it comes to budgets and so forth, republicans and so forth, democrat issues, independents, we don't get the calls and the answers for got now, i tallied these things, and it is unfair. host: thank you for calling in with your observations. we will take note of it. judith, you are on with randy sabett.

we are talking about cybersecurity. caller: well, i think that cybersecurity is very important, but i also think it is important you hear from everybody. also, we have to have a full hearing on the budget. that means every item that is spent. i think it is very important for this countries security -- for this country's security that we actually factor in the wars that we get into a round world, and that makes as insecure because it reflects back on our goals and actual behavior in the world. in we could be more popular if -- did not -- i think we could be more popular if we did not

start wars and use of force other than a moral and ethical force. host: is there anything -- i'm not sure there's anything there you want to respond to on said the security. guest: i think one interesting aspect of the last call is the activities of war and how cybersecurity -- what people call cyberwar -- fits in, and the budget for that. there is the consumer side, the ftc, and number of things related to consumer behavior and what we do in this country. there is a whole separate aspect of several activities -- cyber activities and cyberattacks and cyberwar. won a thing to recognize -- one thing to recognize is, going back to the at tradition issue, cyberwar and the use of the war fighter, is figure out what

attacks come from where, what kind of isolation occurs. and what is the definition of the cyberwar? i think are a number policy issues when we start to talk about how it is used in war that have to be worked out as well. host: what other parts of the world or countries do you suspect or threats in the area of cybersecurity to this country? guest: i think any country that has a very smart population that is highly educated and can take up the types of technology we are talking about either wea ponize them or in a direction that it can be used offensively. china is a common place where people think the attacks are coming from. host: kirk on the democrats' line for randy sabett.

caller: love your show, love you guys provide you do a great job of it. china is a huge problem. they have a situation that is dedicated to nothing but bringing down a u.s. security. when we had trouble with mail flow, we started one of the first law enforcement efforts ever. why don't we bring the laws into line with cybersecurity because sensitive information is being passed through that cyber world the way back then it was in the mail system. first off, let's put some in forced into it -- put some enforcement into it, an agency dedicated to its enforcement, and real loss on the books -- real laws on the box.

and firewalls as far as allowing them to get into the cyberworld and allowing them to fish for information. host: we found this piece in "national journal" recently. "too bad that someone has not put someone in charge of fighting them." guest: well, i think it is a slight over-generalization. i would agree that the government has a difficult task right now in trying to tackle a number of different cyber issues from different directions. the government has made steps forward on the consumer side. they certainly have with the ftc, some of the division's stood up within at dhs, and also to your point about the law is changing -- laws changing,

there are bills pending right now that do focus on this issue and will help move in the right direction. the difficulty here it is that there is not one single solution. we are getting attacked from all sides. all of these things together have to be done in a coordinated fashion. i think the other thing to point out is that, from a legislative perspective, we can legislate as much as we want in the united states, but when there is activity overseas, that resolution only goes so far. if people just attacking from overseas and we don't have the ability to get at them, it is a very difficult problem. host: anne arundel county, maryland. paul is on the line for independents. caller: good morning. i'm actually a student here in anne arundel, and i am working on my information security degree. what you think in the future, if it becomes necessary, the possibility of having an anti-

cyberattack team that goes out and actively searches for cyberattack teams overseas? guest: i think we would need to look at some of the legal authority for that, and there might be authorities that would have to change. on the other hand, i think that there are already groups that are at least focusing on cyberattacks and invested it of cyberattacks overseas -- i don't think in this semi you're talking. i think what you are getting at is focusing on the actual physical taking out of those types of actors. i think the policy implications around that are fairly significant, and a lot more analysis would have to be done before we decided to make a policy change that would go in that direction. but certainly, up to the point

of carrying out some type of offense of activity, we have teams doing that in the united states already. host: hello, terry? go ahead, please. caller: i had a couple of questions about -- well, about cyber security, because of a personal attack -- i think because i am the manager of an apartment complex, my husband and i, and i think we were targeted possibly for additional information that could be gotten through our e-mail account. i ended up -- [unintelligible] my laptop. i have had no internet access for a year.

there was camera software loaded onto it. and our phones -- now is like somebody is rewriting our bill and it -- the bills don't match up. host: the connection is not the greatest, but it sounds like she is coming at it from an extreme personal standpoint. guest: as the caller brought up, any types of discrepancies you see with your accounts, any type of information that you deal with is going to be potential indication that something is going on at. certainly, anything that is connected to the internet is vulnerable. disconnecting the computer -- doing sort of a triage of it --

cleaning, redoing the hard drive, steps that can be taken, and other devices, if they are connected to the internet, can be attacked as well. people should be aware of any type of activity that are out of the norm. whatever they do it normally through their electronic channels -- something changes, they should be aware of it. host: how much of the cyberattacks are truly out there in the business world, and what are the trends? guest: i think the trends and the business world, like thae attacks we have seen, are different. they're not after the quick-use data. they are after intellectual property. they are out to find out who is on your customer list and what the latest orders were.

ly, they nefarious are out there to get into your system and essentially do bad things to bring your business down. businesses need to watch out for the types of things that we were just talking about how whatever might be out of the norm. they have to have a heightened approach to it because they are attacked on a daily basis. host: twitter for our guest -- big area, as you know. guest: huge area. social media combined with mobile technology, those are probably the most significant changes we have seen from a personal security perspective of. certainly, many folks have seen at the horror stories of putting

up that picture that you shouldn't have on whatever social media side you are on. one of the things that folks need to look for a look at -- look for or look at is the collection of data over time and what types of information you are sharing over time, and who they are sharing it with. another important aspect is what our policies of the companies they are dealing with, and how they changed. i council in a lot of corporate clients on policy and security issues. one of the things that corporate clients have to be careful of is if the date make a change to their privacy policy of their -- or their security policy, that he would in a proper way. a lot of times individuals are not necessarily aware of those changes. i think it is a huge issue. host: line for republicans for randy sabett, an internet and

data protection attorney. go ahead. caller: i was just calling because i was wondering, it seems like a lot of people are not aware of how vulnerable it is to use the internet. i probably sound archaic. for on-line banking, any type of cash or money transactions, i know that ultimately when you contact these people, even on the phone alive, they are putting the information into a database, into a computer. everything now i notice is referred to a website, referred to a website, and sometimes when you go to these websites, you cannot even get a contact number. it is very interesting. there is a lot of lack of education of being wary of that. i personally do not to online banking because i know that people can do these hiking types

of things. i just don't trust it, i just don't trust it. the only site i do like to use is paypal, because they have an insurance policy is anything -- if anything goes wrong. i'm curious about your take on that and what type of education is really out there for people, because a lot of people are intolerable, a matter what age they are brought -- a lot of people are vulnerable, no matter what age they are. guest: the caller has a great point as far as education. certainly, the attacks that are occurring in and of themselves are educating people, but it is coming into a bit late. there are a number of different groups that have looked into this issue and have made recommendations related to education, and we need to make education into schools about computers and security.

the steps are starting to happen. they might be a little bit slow, but they are starting to happen. the other thing that folks need to understand is that we have, in my opinion, for too long look that internet issues in a way that really borders on anonymous. in other words, you deal with your bank, but on an anonymous level did a lot of banks are starting to improve their security features so that there is authentication and number of ways. a lot of banks are starting to use harbor tokens -- hardware tokens. a lot can be accomplished in this area, a specifically the area of authentication. on friday there is going to be released to the national strategy on security. if we can make sure i am talking to the person i'm supposed to

dog him to -- i'm supposed to be talking to, we are starting to get towards an internet where we understand better the people that are coming into our system, the people we are communicating with, and the machines at how they are communicating. host: tell us more about this rsa device. guest: many business folks use it, either in a form that goes on your key chain or -- it is the second factor of the authentication. you have a password, but you have this added element that is essentially a random number that is matched up algorithmically. they don't think this was a quick hack. they think that people were using a number of different techniques, including social

engineering, to get to the right information to essentially break the system. they're not in a lot of technical details released yet, which is probably a good thing. you don't want people taking advantage of it before it has been fixed. but it illustrates the problem with relying on just a single type of security. you need but we call in the industry -- you need what we call in the industry and approach that does not rely on a single mechanism. there is already talk about how the problem has been contained. again, it is different from the attacks that have been happening, and again, the corporate level. host: when we invited you to come on the program, this was with the threat of the government shutdown, which has been averted. here is a twitter question for you.

guest: if we look back historically, the last shot down was in the mid-1990's. i'm sure everybody remembers what they were doing on the internet in the mid-1990's brought we certainly were not doing what we're doing today. internet security existed, but mainly within government or educational institutions. i think the landscape has changed significantly since that time. the i'd like to is how government goes about defining what the critical personnel, and who are the folks would not be furloughed. they cannot look back to the old lists, because the old lists would not help you. you need to look today who are the critical people who are within your organization that are not only responsible for making sure that the government continues operating, but also making sure that security is being maintained at.

host: maryland, independent caller. caller: i heard the guests say just a few minutes ago that we do not have much options if we got that too is acting as far as punishment or anything overseas. i'm wondering if we can get the country it to be responsible for policing their own people. can we put pressure on big government instead of the sponsoring cyber-terrorism to start cleaning it up? guest: i think that is a great point. the ability to be successful in doing that, though, it is, i think, an uphill battle. in other words, working with foreign governments that are sponsoring this kind of terror activity is going to be difficult to get them to step up to the table and sign onto some treaty that is going to, in effect, make what they are

doing a violative of that treaty. a number of countries are looking at a number of different types of mechanisms, including treaties, that would strengthen the ability for our government to take action in those countries that sign on to the treaty. to your point, the ones that are sponsoring the terrorist activity won't sign on to the charity. host: austin, good morning. caller: great program as usual, and as i enjoy your program, questions are flowing into my mind. i have not heard this mentioned, the ability of state and county computer systems being jeopardized and being attacked and the possibility of taking down the power grid, or wiping out the traffic control system

within a city. is that realistic? is that eight realistic of vulnerability? if so, what is being done to prevent that? a second question -- it has been a long time since i've been to a computer class, but the last time i went to one, i met a gentleman who knew some guys who wrote viruses years ago. he told me that trying to access the secure side with authority -- a robot is sent out to try to locate where the computer is located that tried on authorized access of that site. it is that true? what types of security measures are being taken to try to foil cyber-crime? guest: ok, the first question, as far as state and county and local governments and the power grid, the attention that has been placed -- a significant amount of attention has been placed on the smart grid, not

necessarily a corresponding level of attention being paid to security associated with the smart grid. setting the smart grid aside, it is a particular focus because it will come into everyone's home eventually. at least that is the plan. with the current power grid and a some of the control systems the remotely, via internet, there are valid concerns. if those systems are not secured properly, it is possible for an attacker to get in. if you remember the brufcce willis movie from a few years ago, "lethal weapon" i forget which number, i forget the phrase that they used, but it involved simultaneously bringing down multiple systems. do i think something like that is possible? probably not, not with the

protections we have in place. this is where the lack of uniformity is actually a good thing. they can attack one system but it will not necessarily work on another system. it could certain aspects of the power grid be brought down? again, if they are not protected properly, yes. but i don't think it would be the kind of thing you see in the movies. to the second thing, robots being sent out to locate an un authorized person was accessed your system, certainly there is technology available that would allow people to be tracked using different techniques. it does not happen automatically every single time. it is usually a specific technique that a person puts into place because they are trying to track someone. however, there could be companies that -- one of the mechanisms they used to protect their system is to do the automatic tracking of anyone who

comes in from an authorized -- unauthorized ip address or connection. host: next call. caller: the lady who called from texas i leader who was talking about -- earlier who was talking about paypal -- they have had some problems over the years, but that is an aside. is there a way of a posting security on the internet, number one, and number two, isn't there a plan for unique id for each individual computer being assigned so they know exactly who the security breaches come from? guest: on the first question, ipv6 is something that would be able to assist with security. one of the biggest issues is going to be its adoption, and

interoperability with ipv4, and how the systems migrate, and what that does the security. as a general proposition, i think it will help, because of the different aspects of it that have been designed for security a. as far as the plastique unique idea, i remember back in the late 1990's there was a plan for the intel chip, and when people found out about that, it became a huge policy issue and and they basically had to back off and tell people how to turn it off. i am not aware of any plan for there to be ubiquitous identification of every computer. certainly, with the ip address system which really have, there are a number of ways for hackers to hide behind it, but going

towards a national id -- one of the concerns of going to a plan where you have a unique id for each computer is that that would be associated with the preserson that could stand in for a personal id. host: take us into federal policy. what is on the horizon for legislation and perhaps money being spent for cybersecurity? guest: it is funny in a scary sort of way, because we have obviously got toi budget issue is still a -- we have obviously got the budget issues still looming and large cuts being talked about. we know that one of the problems with the cybersecurity is a lack of funding. there is a penchant with trying to strike the right balance. -- a tension with trying to strike the right balance privileges light of perspective, there are bills pending -- from

the legislative perspective, there are bills pending that would have a good effect on the landscape we're talking about earlier, where they would address consumer issues, business issues. there are actually some of the bills that would address the issue of education and in fact buildup programs that have a more robust cybersecurity workforce. i think there is a lot happening that will be good. host: time for a couple more calls for our guest. bill, independent for randy sabett. hello, bill? bill is not there. our friend from indiana, carroll, are you there? caller: yes, i am. most of what you're talking about is way over my head ca. anyway, i had a message, saying that "your add security is not

right," and kept coming up and coming up. all of the green at checkmarks were there, but i did end up calling technical support. i just wondered, since it was said that you can get in and destroy the business, can you build your business up? it ended up costing $400 yesterday, i was on the telephone all day with technical. guest: well, i think that -- so the package that you were discussing, i think, is an anti virus package. the costs associated with fixing a computer if something goes wrong with it is going to be dependent on how much work they have to do. can businesses recover? certainly they can recover from a separate attack -- from a cyberattack or some type of the cyber-activity that has brought them down at. the issue comes down to the

level of experience that the folks have within the business for putting the network back in place, but also the desire to get back up and running quickly. that is what is going to dictate how much it costs. host: robert, republican for randy sabett. caller: yes, there is a comment i would like to make. one figure that has not been brought up, and that is because the use of microsoft windows in particular over the length of time that it has been available on the market, all through their versions, they have had a long history of the vulnerability after vulnerability after vulnerability. trendmicro a couple of months

ago released data that there is over 1 million the viruses and trojans through it. that is on the database for microsoft windows. i am a linux advocate. what i would like to see is microsoft being brought to task for the -- either forced to redesign their operating system with security in mind, or to at least mitigate a lot of these damages that it has caused through breaches and in alice. -- and everything else. guest: i think you are touching on at two really significant issues. one is software licensing, and the process that we use currently in the industry for

disturbing the software. in those cases, as you probably know, and most folks probably know, the software that you get contains a very limited amount of warranties and any action you can take against that company. but the other thing you need to recognize is that -- actually, two other things specific to microsoft. one is that microsoft, as with most other commercial software companies, are in a difficult position. they are being pushed by their shareholders and the public to get better features, out there quicker, out there in a way that makes more money for the company. but then on the other hand, we are demanding that the software be secure. i am not saying that either one of those should be given up. i am saying that the balance that has been struck in the past between those things, in most cases, not just in microsoft's tase, has tended toward favoring getting the problem out there

and then fixing it after the fact. we are in a much different environment, and if you look at microsoft's computing initiative, along with other techniques that other companies have taken, there is attention to security. but security is a very difficult thing. there is a joke about analogizing microsoft windows -- i will not go through all the aspect of it, but if you take the analogy -- it as someone wants to attack you with their car, do they have the ability to go in and modify your spark plugs in your engine? no, they don't have access to it. it is different with a computer print with software, there are multiple ways you can get in there -- it is given with a computer. twith the software, there are multiple ways you can get in

there. companies are getting a better affixing them, but i think we are still at a point where more can be done. i don't think it makes sense to upend the apple cart and start going after software companies with product liability theory that has not been well thought out. host: jeff, teaneck, new jersey, independent. caller: i have been a computer programmer for 20 years. i been following the security debate for many, many years. going back to the previous caller talking about liability, how do you feel about liability for companies who may not have done the best job maintaining the networks? it does not really -- not too much when there is the data breach. guest: